The Melancholy of Resistance

Laszlo Krasznahorkai

The Melancholy of Resistance begins with Mrs Plauf, who has a fearful
train trip returning home when a cancelled service forces her to share
a carriage with the unwashed masses. Beset by anxieties about sex and
security, and seeking familiar comforts, she is a fine representative
of the bourgeoisie.

Mrs Eszter, in contrast, is a fascist, in bed (literally) with the chief
of police, full of plans to reform the town, and adept with propaganda.
She has no compunction about using Mrs Plauf and others and then
discarding them.

There are signs in these opening chapters that all is not right with
their small provincial town: it has been an unseasonably cold November,
a travelling circus is advertising the showing of the body of an enormous
whale, and an air of menace looms. And when civil order breaks down,
Mrs Plauf's worst nightmares come to pass and Mrs Eszter triumphs,
returning in the final chapter to enjoy the culmination of her schemes.

The central six chapters of The Melancholy of Resistance alternate
between Valuska, Mrs Plauf's son, and Mr Eszter, Mrs Eszter's estranged
husband. Valuska is the town simpleton and a dreamer, always thinking
about the heavens. And Eszter is a valetudinarian pessimist withdrawn
from the evils of the world, a retired music lecturer distressed by the
prevalence of the even-tempered scale.

Valuska and Eszter are caught up in the disturbances, but for them the
external events are less significant than their psychological effects.
Both undergo philosophical epiphanies, though they are unable to
communicate them to anyone else. Their one enduring strength is their
loyalty to each another.

Krasznahorkai uses chapters of thirty to forty pages, with pretty much no
paragraphs and long, long sentences. And he extensively employs quoted
cliches, reflecting the way his characters have their thoughts moulded
by familiar ideas. Long passages about humdrum matters, for example
when Eszter is learning how to hammer nails, and internal monologues
are mixed with tense, action-packed episodes. Krasznahorkai's language
provides a driving force that works for all of these, and the overall
unfolding of the story is steady and inexorable. I found it hard to
stop reading within chapters.

Its often feels surreal, but there is nothing in The Melancholy of
Resistance that is not ultimately realistic. It is almost stately in its
progress, but carries us along at a precipitous rate. And it is almost
unremittingly dark and menacing, but at the same time laced through
with humour, with elements of the absurd, incongruous juxtapositions,
and characters talking at cross purposes.

In the face of unbridled lust for power, withdrawal from the world
will fail, whether to the bourgeois' fortified home, the philosopher's
intellectual retreat, or the dreamer's imaginative world. Krasznahorkai
doesn't offer this as a political or moral lesson, however, but rather
explores the consequences for individuals, whose depths are remorselessly
revealed to us.

Similarly, Krasznahorkai's little Hungarian town, nameless though it is,
is a unique and memorable creation which takes on a life of its own,
becoming more than just a stage. The Melancholy of Resistance was
written in Hungary in 1989, but it is in no way parochial.

The Melancholy of Resistance is hardly going to command a mass audience,
but it is one of the most striking and imposing novels I have read.